Canada's Bruce and Li to play for Olympic badminton bronze

Lori Ewing, Canadian Press08.02.2012

LONDON, UK: AUGUST 2, 2012 -- Canada's Alex Bruce (R) and Michele Li dejected after losing the last point in the third set to Japan's Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa in semi-finals of the women's doubles badminton in Wembley Arena at the Olympic Games in London, August 2, 2012.

They'll play Russians Valeria Sorokina and Nina Vislova for third-place Saturday at Wembley Arena in an unlikely Olympic storyline neither Canadian could have envisioned.

The 22-year-old Bruce and 20-year-old Li -- known on the badminton circuit as Bruce Li -- thought their Games were over barely a day earlier, but found themselves in the semifinals after eight players were expelled from the competition for losing on purpose.

Canada has never qualified for the semifinals or won an Olympic medal in badminton.

The Canadians, No. 27 in the world, were prepared to head home after they finished last in their pool by a combined score of 126-52.

But two of those defeats came against teams that were disqualified Wednesday, accused of throwing their matches to set up a more advantageous path through the medal round.

The Canadians, gold medallists at the Pan American Games last fall in Mexico, were reinstated and just hours later went on to defeat Australia's Leanne Choo and Renuga Veeran in the quarter-finals.

Sorokina and Nina Vislova, who were also reinstated after originally being eliminated, lost 21-19, 21-6 to China's Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei in Thursday's other semifinal.

Eight players from China, South Korea and Indonesia were expelled including world champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang in what's become one of the biggest stories of these Games.

Fans at Wembley Arena booed as the players fired the shuttlecock into the net or out of bounds.

Juhl argued the quarter-finals should have been redrawn because the winners ended up playing each other, and the four group losers faced off.

Juhl suggested the Canadians and Russians thank them for their spots in the semifinals.

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